Digital poultry farming startup wins Seedstars Zimbabwe

Online poultry farming startup Rera has been named the winner of the Zimbabwean leg of the Seedstars World competition, and will now compete at the global final in Switzerland for the chance to win up to US$1 million in equity investment.

Seedstars is back on the road following the culmination of the last edition of the competition in April, with African winners having already been named in Egypt and Tunisia.

Its Zimbabwe event took place on June 29 at Impact Hub Harare, with nine startups pitching in front of a local jury panel.

The winner was Rera, a platform that enables retail consumers to farm their own chickens and save up to 40 per cent on buying poultry produce without having to own the infrastructure of a chicken farm.

Rera will now participate at the Seedstars Summit in April 2019, where it will take part in a week-long training programme and have the chance to pitch in front of an audience of more than 1,000 attendees with the possibility of winning up to US$1 million in equity investment and other prizes.

Wellnescript, a wellness and digital health startup, came second, while YouFarm, which provides collateral-free funding for farmers via its crowd-farming platform, came third.

There was also a prize for the best civic tech startup and a best learner prize. The first was taken by Vote Africa, a mobile application aiming to educate, motivate and empower the electorate, and the second by Justice Today, which protects citizens from crime and uses artificial intelligence to educate them on the steps to take when victimised.

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Passionate about the vibrant tech startups scene in Africa, Tom can usually be found sniffing out the continent's most exciting new companies and entrepreneurs, funding rounds and any other developments within the growing ecosystem.